With Australia in flames, Italian cities choked by smog and parts of Canada enjoying an unseasonal thaw, I’m listening to Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Pastoral Symphony, a lament for pre-1914 rhythms of life. …
Brazil’s culture minister Roberto Alvim, a former military man, is under attack for recycling a speech by Joseph Goebbels in favour of ‘heroic’ and ‘national’ art.
As he speaks, Wagner’s Lohengrin plays in the background.
#PrêmioNacionaldasArtes | Marco histórico nas artes e na cultura brasileira! Com investimento de mais de R$ 20 milhões, o Prêmio Nacional das Artes vai apoiar projetos de sete categorias em todas as regiões do Brasil. Dê o play e confira! pic.twitter.com/dbbW4xuKpM
— Secretaria Especial da Cultura (@CulturaGovBr) January 16, 2020
Immediately after Domingo’s appearance last night at the Berlin Staatsoper, his young conductor Thomas Guggeis, 25, was officially promoted to the title ‘Staatskapellmeister’ of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
Coincidence?
Mikko Franck has dropped out of Strauss’s Salome and Verdi’s Otello next week at the Vienna State Opera.
His last-minute replacements are Michael Boder, who conducted Salome there last year, and the British conductor Jonathan Darlington, 63, former music director of Vancouver Opera who made his Vienna debut as recently as 2014.
In a rush of new blood, the Israel Philharmonic made these appointments this morning:
Nina Bernat – principal doubebass
Ari Þór Vilhjálmsson – principal second violins
Dima Ratush – principal viola
Haran Meltzer – principal cello
plus
Lia Perlov – Assistant principal cello
Bernat won the Juilliard bass prize in 2019.
Ari, ex-Helsinki Phil, is the IPO’s first Icelander.
Haran is based in Berlin
First reports from last night’s Traviata at the Staatsoper on Under den Linden say there were a number of women picketing peacefully and handing out leaflets in protest against Placido Domingo’s appearance.
The matter had been raised earlier in the day at the Berlin Senate, where Culture Senator Klaus Lederer pledged to ‘exchange views’ with the State Opera director in due course.
Inside, there were ovations, albeit nothing like the recent eruptions at Salzburg and Milan.
The death has been reported in Australia of Barry Tuckwell, principal horn of the London Symphony Orchestra in its liveliest era and its chairman in turbulent times. He was 88.
Barry came to Britain in 1951 and won a seat in the Halle’s horn section under John Barbirolli. Four years later he was named principal at the LSO, which would send its chief conductor packing after an outbreak of fisticuffs. He held the first horn seat for 13 years, and was loud enough to be elected chairman, a role he exerted with vigour. Ernest Fleischman never forgave Barry for firing him as general manager after he had just secured for the orchestra its residency in the unbuilt Barbican Centre. Ernest went on to rebuild the LA Phil, agreeing reluctantly to a reconciliation with Barry not long before he died.
Barry left the LSO for an international solo career, which went well for a while. He is reckoned to be the most prolific horn player on record. Later on he took up conducting, returning home as chief conductor of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in 1980.
He was a live wire in London’s vibrant Australian scene. His sister Patricia married the Queen’s cousin, the Earl of Harewood, and Charles Mackerras was a close mate. Barry was a convivial fellow, always ready with a cheery quip. The last time I saw him in Australia, he came rushing over to demand the latest ins and outs of the London orchestral scene.
photo (c) Fritz Curzon
The RCM has rolled out a raft of appointments.
Toby Purser is to be Head of Conducting.
Dimitri Scarlato is Area Leader in Composition for Screen.
Soprano Sarah Tynan joins the Vocal and Opera Faculty.
Other recent appointments include Ilya Kondratiev, Mengyang Pan, Caterina Grewe and Dinara Klinton in the Keyboard Faculty; violinist Alexander Gilman as Visiting Professor in the Strings Faculty; bassoonists Emily Hultmark and Roberto Giaccaglia in the Woodwind Faculty; and double bass and violone player Carina Cosgrave in Historical Performance.
Three months ago we shared a video from a Youtube site called This Is Opera.
The video purported to show alleged deficiencies in the conducting technique and vocal expertise of the Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. We thought it was worth discussing and so – apparently – did you, with 149 comments on the original post.
Within about 48 hours, the video was taken down. No reason was given.
The more important set of Bagatelles, dating from his last years and inscribed to his turbulent brother, were described by Beethoven as ‘the best I’ve written’. Although the term ‘bagatelle’ means trivial, the six short pieces contain elements of profound sonatas, notably opp 101 and 106. Listen to Sviatoslav Richter play three of them in Moscow 1959 and you will be left in no doubt of their bottomless depth.
Alfred Brendel recorded the set at least three times, exemplifying his constant quest for meaning. Although the studio sound is a tad brittle, I find his earliest recording, for Turnabout in 1964, the most agreeable and least stressed of his output. Wilhelm Kempff, in the same year, sounds so laidback you have to wonder if this is not an assertion of cultural ownership: only a true German could possibly know what Beethoven really had in mind. Kempff’s take is so antipodal to Richter and Brendel that I’m almost tempted to compare them phrase by phrase and will probably do so on a desert island when this edition is over.
For a non-plinky fortepiano alternative, I like the unhurried, conversational approach of the Belgian Jos Van Immerseel.
11 Bagatelles opus 119
Earlier and more haphazard than the six Bagatelles opus 126, this set of 11 was grouped together for the benefit of a London publisher. One can almost imagine Beethoven grabbing sheets of paper from the chaos that surrounded his desk. Some of these Baggers date back to the 1790s and the whole set sounds more convincing on a period piano than a modern one. Ronald Brautigam, strictly non-aligned in terms of musicological disputation, is the one to hear.
The Hungarian Jeno Jando makes a good contrast for uncomplicated entertainment, as does the Austrian Rudolf Buchbinder and Steven Osborne, whose label Hyperion is one of few that refuses to put its recordings on Idagio. You’ll have to track him down the old-fashioned way, and you won’t be sorry.